18 year old tells you how you can meet your creative heroes
Have you ever fancied working in the music industry, so you can meet your favorite bands in person and see what they’re really like?, 18 yr old Alexandra McLoughlin has done just that and she explains how you can do the same
Alex with Tim Burgess Glastonbury Festival 2007
We met Alex at Glastonbury Festival while getting ready to take photos in the pit. She had already met most of her favorite bands backstage and had her photo taken with them! Her story should be an inspiration to anyone who wants to get into the music industry. Alex told us she had just finished her National Diploma in Media Production at Central Sussex College’s, but she’s got tons more real life experience than your average student.
Keith From We Are Scientist with by Alex backstage at Glastonbury Festival
As well as Glastonbury, Alex has done work experience with Biss Magazine,. She has also contributed to Europunk.net, mytelegraph.net, www.mtv.co.uk, www.creaturemag.com, www.studentnetworksussex, as well as NME. She also has her own blog www.alexandramcloughlin.blogspot.com
Miss McLoughlin has interviewed shed loads of successful bands including Stone Gods, The Ghost of A Thousand, Bowling For Soup, The Horrors, Madina Lake and The Blackout to name just a few. She has also met We Are Scientists, The Enemy, Kelly From Stereophonics, Tim Burgess (The Charlatans), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), James Morrison, Luke from The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Jamie from the Klaxons and many more.
Mark Ronson performing at Glastonbury Festival 2008, photo by Alex McLoughlin
Alex - To enhance my career as a young Music Journalist, I try to get involved as much as I can with the media so I arrange my own interviews with bands and write articles on Record Labels as well as Reviews on Albums, Bands, Venues, Mainstream Music, Gigs, books and Movies and I do all this work on a voluntary basis.
As well as managing to secure interviews with some top bands, she has also won Most Promising Journalist award, as well as BTEC Learner of the year. Alex has also been granted a NUJ (National Union of Journalists) press pass, and she was hand-selected by Edexcel to celebrate the launch of VQ Day at the House of Commons.
What advice would you give other people who want to meet their creative hereos?
You have to be very, very determined and prepared to wait for as long to meet the person. Do not mix with the eBayers. You can tell who they are as they are often the people who do not know who anyone is and they have a folder of professional photos of every celebrity you can possibly think! They bring them, get then signed and sell them. You can often hear them talking about how much money they have made out of them. I keep seeing the same ones at every movie premiere and music award ceremony. They really bug me and the celebrities!
How do you go about meeting top musicians and celebrities?
Before I became a Journalist I would wait before or at the end of a gig at the backstage door. I would do this depending on how much I wanted to meet the person. Sometimes you wait for hours and others not so long. Depends on the celebrity. In terms of non-musicians, I go to the BAFTAS as a fan with mum and we wait by the red carpet. Many people do it! And also movie premieres. Check out www.premierehub.com for up and coming premieres and locations.
Pigeon Detectives performing at Glastonbury Festival, photo by Alex McLoughlin
How do you find the press details?
Normally on the record label’s website and other times on the bands website. Sometimes on their myspace page and other times you can’t find a contact at all. It’s so much harder then you could imagine!
What skills do you think you need to succeed?
You need patience because sometimes you get don’t get a reply about interviews until the last minute! Personality because if you are very shy then the band are likely to pick that up and will feel awkward, also making them laugh is great because it’s like talking to a close friend. You must have good grammar so that you can be heard clearly. Strong emotionally because sometimes stubborn tour managers yell you at on the phone and have to deal with difficult PA’s, but you can’t let this get you down. And finally you must be determined to get the interviews or press access and do whatever you must to get it! There was a band who I tried for months to get an interview with, never got replies and then finally I got it!
What do you think is the key to getting interviews with bands?
“Persistence! You must be persistent. Even though you may have won awards for being a great Journalist or been given Glastonbury twice in a row it doesn’t mean you are going to get a reply about an interview with “We are Scientists” or whoever you are trying for. You have just got to be persistent. If you get one denial from a label don’t give up! Try, try, try again. One of my Journalist friend’s kept getting rejections about a certain band so she held a sign up at a gig and got it! The band noticed it, recognised her and gave her an interview! Oh and by the way always send the links to your past interviews to whoever gave you them!
What lessons have you learned from interviewing bands?
They are not always as confident as they seem! Most of the bands that I’ve interviewed who seem really fearless and “hard” have actually been very sweet and shy. Just because the guy has a chest covered in tattoos and swears on stage it doesn’t mean he’s nasty and loves himself that much! I’ve also learned that every interviewer has their own style of doing things. I like to ask random off the wall questions because you get laughs out of it and it’s just more fun to watch or listen to! If you think about it, bands get interviewed all the time about the same old questions, they need a change and a little shock! It’s far more fun!
At the end of August, Alex has arranged work experience with the NME and shortly after kerrang, then she’s off to to start University at Goldsmiths in London studying Media and Communications.
To have achieved all this at the tender age of eighteen is really impressive. It goes to show that anything is possible, if you have the balls to go out there and get it. Its not just about talent. It takes dedication, tenacity and the right creative attitude.
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